SwineCast Update for August 5, 2011, What is Agriculture's Macro Economic Condition?

Submitted by John Blue on August 5, 2011 - 1:36am.

That heat you're feeling is impacting market weights, according to economist Steve Meyer. He notes in a recent CME Group Newsletter, "Pork wholesale prices have climbed sharply in recent days, with prices in the last five trading days hitting new all time record highs. This has allowed packers to continue to bid up the price of hogs coming to market with hog carcass values now also record high levels.... The latest daily report (Aug 1) showed that the weighted average carcass weight of the 346,810 hogs slaughtered was 198.04 pounds, compared to 200.54 pounds a year ago. Another sign of the sharp decline in hog weights is the tight supply of fat pork trimmings in the marketplace."

Dr. Meyer also noted Chinese buyers are in the market and moving U.S. pork across the Pacific in a big way. (To subscribe visit www.dailylivestockreport.com)

A special program discussion with top Ag Lenders looks at the macro issues facing agriculture with perspective on the feed grains and the Farm Bill. Bottom line, "It's a good time to be in agriculture."

Audio: What is Agriculture's Macro Economic Condition? - Dr. Terry Barr, CoBank's Knowledge Exchange Group, and Ross Anderson, Chief Credit Officer with AgriBank, discuss major topics of concern in today's agricultural arena. Do we feed or export grain? Turn it into ethanol? And when will the Washington debate turn to the Farm Bill?

Video: Time to PRRSv negative pigs - Dr. Daniel Linhares, University of Minnesota, highlights a study on PRRSv comparing the effectiveness of administering live virus vaccine to that of resident virus when used as part of an exposure / closure herd program.

Keeping Pigs Cool - The midwest is experiencing high heat and humidity this summer. These high temperatures not only make you feel terrible but your livestock can feel bad too. From the University of Minnesota, this document provides guidelines on identifying optimum swine temperature ranges and tactics to keeping the pigs cool.